Interest in Poker Drops Across Nevada

Mar 27, 2017

Poker is losing popularity in Las Vegas and across the state of Nevada as casinos have started to closedown their poker rooms or make them smaller. A case in point is the Monte Carlo casino which is to eliminate its eight-table room in a month as part of a $450-million renovation project.

According to industry experts, the peak of poker was in 2007, with revenues reaching $97 million and 405 poker tables in operation. Last year figures dropped to $78 million from the remaining 320 tables.

While the appeal of the game soared at the beginning of the millennium due to the rise in online gambling, there was a drastic twist in 2011 when the federal government carried out its first major crackdown on internet poker.

Brian Gordon, a principal at the Las Vegas-based research entity Applied Analysis, said, “Gaming has become a smaller portion of the overall revenue mix and things like poker rooms are candidates for further evaluation as to whether they make sense or not at a casino property.”